Comparison of Various Formulations of Three-Phase Flow in Porous Media

✍ Scribed by Zhangxin Chen; Richard E. Ewing

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 374 KB
• Volume: 132
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9991
• DOI: 10.1006/jcph.1996.5641

✦ Synopsis

from the case of two-phase flow. The three-phase relative permeability and capillary pressure curves are far more Various formulations of the governing equations that describe three-phase (e.g., water, oil, and gas) flow in porous media, includcomplex than the corresponding two-phase curves. It is ing phase, global, and pseudo-global pressure-saturation formulathe complexity of these three-phase curves that complitions, are discussed in this paper. Comparisons of these differential cates the derivation of the global pressure-saturation form formulations are theoretically and numerically presented for the for the former case. In the two-phase flow, the governing first time. It is shown that the global pressure-saturation formulation equations can be written in terms of a global pressure and is the most efficient one from the computational point of view in the case where the three-phase relative permeability and capillary saturation without any hypothesis . However, in pressure curves satisfy a so-called total differential condition, the the three-phase flow we show that the total differential pseudo-global formulation is useful when the fractional flow funccondition is necessary and sufficient for the governing tions of the water and gas phases are close to their respective mean equations to be written in terms of a global pressure and values, and the phase formulation can be applied generally. ᮊ 1997 Academic Press two saturations. While this condition is not satisfied for all the existing three-phase curves, it is here verified that it is satisfied for some simplified models.